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The ITUC, together with TUCA, and the CUTH, CTH and CGT, its Honduran affiliates, have denounced the repression, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions and the use of firearms suffered by those taking part in peaceful demonstrations held to protest against the coup d’état and to demand the restitution of the constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya.

The ITUC has once again strongly condemned the military coup carried out in Honduras on 28 June with the abduction, overthrow and expulsion from the country of President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, as it had along with its regional organisation the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA) on 8 July 2009.

This week, the Obama Administration announced the outcome of the 2008 Annual Review under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programs. The report included a review of three petitions filed by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) related to the eligibility of countries that have violated the rights of workers.

The ITUC, together with its regional organisation TUCA and its three national affiliates in Colombia, has strongly condemned the murder of Rafael Antonio Sepúlveda Lara, an affiliate of the national hospital workers’ union, Asociación Nacional de Trabajadores Hospitalarios de Colombia (ANTHOC), and a member of the national executive of the public servants’ federation, Federación Nacional de Servidores Públicos (FENASER-CTC).

The ITUC once again strongly condemns and denounces the murders of two more trade unionists in the Arauca region. Pablo Rodríguez Garavito and Jorge Humberto Echaverri Garro, teachers affiliated to the Arauca teachers’ association Asociación de Educadores de Arauca (ASEDAR), were brutally murdered by unknown gunmen.

The ITUC has joined with its regional organisation TUCA, its Colombian affiliates, and ASEDAR, in their resounding condemnation of these murders, mourned by working people and the national, regional and international trade union movement.

According to the seven Nigerien trade union organisations within the Intercentrale CDTN-CGSL-CNT-UGSEIN-UGTN-USPT-USTN inter-union grouping, democratic stability is under serious threat in Niger. President Mamadou Tandja is pushing for a referendum aimed at changing the Nigerien Constitution so that he can run for a third term.

This situation has come about following the Constitutional Court’s rejection, on 25 May, of his call for a referendum. The National Assembly was dissolved the following day.

Speaking in Geneva on the World Day Against Child Labour, Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation hit out at the global cotton industry as one of the most exploitative industries employing millions of children in preparing, planting and picking.

A new report released today by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) and anonymous human rights activists shows that while international pressure from retailers and consumers has had some effect in curbing forced child labor in the production of cotton in Uzbekistan, the practice is still pervasive.

For over 80 years, the Bridgestone Firestone tire company has owned the world’s largest rubber plantation in Liberia. Child labor, widespread abuse of worker’s rights and environmental destruction have characterized the plantation for generations. But workers and communities affected by Firestone’s abuses are fighting back. Come hear the leaders of the union representing Firestone workers in Liberia and a leading environmental advocate discuss their fight for economic and environmental justice – and find out how you can support their struggle!

After three years of studying the impact of the free trade agreement DR-CAFTA on labor rights, the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) published a study today that reveals that labor conditions in the DR-CAFTA countries have not improved and violations have not diminished regardless of promises made by the member countries to improve labor rights and the millions of dollars invested by the United States to meet this objective. Moreover, WOLA anticipates the labor situation in Central America will deteriorate further due to the global economic crisis.

Meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, on 27 April, the ICEM Latin America/Caribbean Regional Committee gave strong support to non-ICEM affiliate Sintramienergética in the aftermath of its safety strike against US-based Drummond Coal recently. (Details on that strike can be found here.)

In a unified response to safety shortfalls that killed a contract worker at Drummond Coal’s La Loma mine, 8,000 members of Sintramienergética and other contract staff stage a four-day strike late in March that shut production of Colombia’s second largest coal mine.

Dagoberto Clavijo Barranco, a one-month worker at La Loma who was put there through a labour agency, was killed on 23 March when the coal-hauling vehicle he was operating fell into an open-cast mine.

For perks some companies offer flextime, job training, or 401k contributions, but at Equal Exchange full-time permanent workers can get a vote to go along with all that. The 23 year-old, $34 million employee-owned firm, best known for their Fair Trade coffee, tea and chocolate, is run like a small New England town where the workers are the citizens, the employee-led Board is the City Council, and the top managers fill a role similar to the City Manager.